After the War
by Adrian Kyle
Summary: The First Wizarding War has just ended, but Remus is left wondering how Sirius could have betrayed his friends. This story will follow the two through the rest of their relationship. Warning: implied slash.
1. Loss

The street was dark, dank, dirty and, for the moment, deserted. After one final look around, Remus raised his wand and pointed it at a blank stretch of wall. He muttered the first password and attempted to maintain control over his feelings. He would have liked to have been alone dealing with his grief, but at the same time he knew that his responsibility to the Order was, at the moment, greater than his responsibility to himself.

Remus continued the security routine until the front door of Order's headquarters came into view. He knocked.

"Who is it?" someone asked from behind the door. From the voice, Remus suspected it was Arthur Weasley.

"It's Remus…is that you, Arthur?"

The door swung open to reveal not only Arthur but also Albus Dumbledore and Frank Longbottom. All three had their wands raised and pointed directly at Remus. This was typical—as a security measure, no member of the Order trusted another until his identity was confirmed. What was not typical was the look of mistrust and betrayal in their three faces. Remus, confused, prepared to answer his security questions. Instead of asking them, however, Dumbledore disarmed Remus with a flick of his wand. With another minute movement Dumbledore bound Remus head to toe in thick ropes. The ropes tightened painfully, and Remus found that he could not move. He tried to protest, to tell Dumbledore and the others that it had all been Sirius, that he'd had nothing to do with the murders, that he had also been betrayed—but before he could open his mouth, a rope identical to the ones tied around his body had gagged him, and he was being levitated into the house.

The door closed tightly behind him. The paneled hallway, which was normally brightly lit, was dim—no one had bothered to turn on the lamp. The only light spilled out of a doorway at the end of the hall. Arthur and Frank proceeded towards the light. Dumbledore followed. Remus floated beside him, still struggling against his bonds. Remus could hear the murmur of hushed voices emanating from the lighted room, but as the four men drew closer the voices stopped.

Arthur and Frank walked in the door and sat down immediately. Dumbledore, on the other hand, remained standing with Remus. Remus looked around the long, narrow room. It had been the Order's main meeting room for months, but never had it looked so still or so empty. The charts, lists, and maps, which were taken down at the end of every meeting so that they wouldn't be discovered if the hideout was found, had not been put back on the walls. The entire remaining Order (of whom there were only about twenty) was there, but for once everyone was quiet and everyone was still. Even the portraits on the walls, who were usually as loquacious as they were helpful as spies, had fallen silent. Rubeus Hagrid, Alastor Moody, Minerva McGonagall, Daedalus Diggle, even Mundungus Fletcher—all were there. In fact, the only person who was (rather conspicuously) absent was Severus Snape. Remus hardly noticed, however, as every member of the Order was looking at him with the same suspicion and anger as the first three had.

Remus was forced into a chair, but his bonds were not removed. Tears began to form in his eyes, but he forced them back. No. Not here. Not now.

Dumbledore flicked his wand a third time, and Remus' gag was removed. Remus found, however, that suddenly he had no words. Such a tumultuous mix of desires, questions, ideas, and feelings rose within him that he was incapable of expressing anything. So he sat in silence for a moment, catching his breath and trying to hold himself together. Trying to think of something—anything—other than the past two days. He furrowed his brow. At the moment, he could hardly remember what things had been like before all this had started.

Dumbledore spoke first. Some of the fire had gone out of his icy eyes—he now looked merely tired and sad. "I take it from your silence that you know why you are…in your present situation," he said slowly, gesturing at Remus' bonds with one long, graceful hand.

Remus opened his mouth to say that he hadn't the foggiest, thank you very much, but then it hit him. He stopped himself. They didn't think…

"You can't think I _knew_ this was going to happen, do you?" he blurted angrily. After all he had been through the idea that the others didn't trust him was infuriating. "Don't be thick. If I had, why would I even be here? Why would I have even come back?"

"Why don't you tell us?" asked Alastor Moody coldly, his false eye staring right through Remus, "You were living with him, after all. I find it hard to believe that you had no idea about what he was going to do. But maybe you thought we would still trust you anyway, and that's why you're back."

"Believe me," Remus snarled, "I wouldn't be stupid enough to come back after that. I am just as bloody shocked as you are. Probably more so. I would never have betrayed the Order, and I would never have betrayed James and Lily. I just wish I had been the one to find Sirius." Remus had to choke out the name. He continued, but his voice still sounded strained, "Thirteen lives might have been saved. As for how I didn't notice—he was always out doing things for the Order. So was I. In the end, I spent more time working than I did with him." Remus hoped he had not sounded bitter. He glared around the table, daring his comrades to continue to disbelieve him. His eyes came to rest on Dumbledore, whose face was impassive behind his long white beard and glinting spectacles.

"There were those in the Order who thought you were a spy even before this happened," piped up Emmeline Vance.

Remus felt his stomach sink. Could the Order members think they had evidence? "Who said that?" he demanded.

There was an awkward pause. Dumbledore cleared his throat. "Sirius did, actually," he admitted.

Everyone looked a little ashamed at Dumbledore's words, but Remus thought he felt the room relax slightly as well.

"Well, that proves my story then, doesn't it?" Remus snapped, "He was the spy, and he wanted to frame me instead. But he was the Secret-Keeper, not me. You know that. And now he's killed his best friend, his best friend's wife, Peter, and all those Muggles. Any day now, they'll lock him up in Azkaban and throw away the key. But I'm telling you—I had no idea. None." Remus' voice finally broke, and a tear slid down his face. In the silence that followed, Remus could no longer ignore the hollow, aching chasm inside his chest. He ducked his head to hide his face as the tears began to flow faster. He felt his bonds loosen and disappear. A hand came to rest reassuringly on his shoulder, and he looked up to see that it belonged to Alice Longbottom. Her gaze was fixed on Remus' face, and her eyes swam with sorrow. Indeed, the entire table was now realizing the enormity of Remus' situation. Everyone was looking at him with intense pity.

"I'm sorry we had to put you through that, Remus," said Dumbledore, "But you can't be careful enough these days."

Remus stood up, nodded at the table, and walked briskly out the door into the cold, damp night.

Remus had lost more that night than any of the other remaining members of the Order. His three greatest friends were dead, and the only man he had ever loved was now on his way to prison, never to be seen again.

Remus couldn't make sense of any of it. Sirius had loved James. In fact, James often joked that while Sirius was _in love_ with Remus, Sirius _liked_ James better. And there was some truth in that. Back when James, Remus, Sirius and Peter had all just been friends, there had been no denying that Sirius and James shared the closest bond. They were closer than brothers. Even when Sirius and Remus began exploring the possibility of being more than friends, Sirius and James remained inseparable. Remus had feared that Sirius' and his transition between being friends and being lovers would be strange for James, but Sirius handled the situation with the same causal ease as he handled everything else. He would smile, shake his long, shaggy straight black hair out of his eyes (oh how Remus loved to watch the hair flow across Sirius' neck like a river at night as Sirius moved to look at something…), and charm the awkwardness away. But Remus had to banish these thoughts—Sirius was gone, and there was nothing Remus could do to bring him back. It was time for Remus to move on.

Remus wasn't sure he could.


	2. Reflection

A couple of people had protested vaguely as Remus left the meeting, offered their condolences, asked if they could escort him home. But Remus was half-running away from the group, eager to be alone. The moment he was outside he disapparated back to the small apartment that, until the day before, had belonged to Sirius and him.

When he arrived, he found the place looking exactly as it always did. Recently, the increasingly hectic lifestyle of its inhabitants had only added to the usual disarray. Remus was relatively neat when he had the energy to be, but Sirius was an unabashed slob. Remus tried not to look at Sirius' shoes, which sat in the middle of the dimly lit, somewhat shabby yet cozy common room. He tried not to look at the cloak Sirius had hung by the door, the notes Sirius had pinned to the cork board, or the Muggle bass guitar Sirius had left on the sofa. He walked into the kitchen. Here, at least, there would be no ghosts.

Remus leaned against the counter and buried his face in his hands again. Lily and James were dead, and yet all he could think about was Sirius. Sirius' betrayal of Lily and James had gotten them killed, but all Remus could think about was how Sirius had betrayed the man who loved him, the only Marauder to make it out of this mess.

What Remus had said about wishing he had been the one to find Sirius was true. And Remus had tried. When Sirius hadn't returned from whatever Order business he had been attending to Halloween night, Remus had searched everywhere for him. Finally, he crept surreptitiously into Godric's Hollow—Order members had to be careful when going there, so as not to tip off the Death Eaters—and that was when Remus saw the smoke.

No one had been at the house by the time Remus arrived, but Remus deduced what had happened the moment he saw the burnt house. Assuming that all of the Potters had been killed, his first thought had been, _They've got Sirius_. Never dreaming that Sirius had volunteered the information about where the Potters were hiding, Remus assumed that Sirius had been held and tortured, forced to tell Voldemort the truth.

Remus had looked everywhere for clues, for some sign of where Sirius could have been taken. He had returned to the Order headquarters, but no one there had known what was going on. Remus had searched until almost daybreak, at which point he had returned home to sit on the couch and wait for news. There, he had dozed off. He had awoken to the rapping of the Daily Prophet owl on the window. The front page of the paper had borne the headline "VOLDEMORT VANQUISHED BY INFANT."

Remus had leapt to his feet and continued his search. It was true that he had wanted to be the one to find Sirius, but even when he heard that Sirius had voluntarily betrayed Lily and James he hadn't wanted revenge. He hadn't believed the stories at first, and he had wanted to find Sirius to save him from whoever else was looking for him. Even now, knowing what Sirius had done, Remus wished he had succeeded. Was that so wrong?

Remus stopped rubbing his face and opened his eyes. It was then that he saw the dirty dishes in the sink. They were still covered with the casserole that Sirius had attempted to make for dinner two nights ago—the night of October 30th. Remus had returned late from doing some task for the Order. He and Sirius were always busy and didn't see much of each other—it was rare that they had the chance to eat a meal together. Remus had returned home tired and drained to find Sirius finishing up setting the table. "Perfect timing," he had said with a rakish grin. That night had been the last time Remus had seen Sirius. Only a little more than 48 hours ago, it seemed like an eternity.

Remus couldn't stand it anymore. There was too much inside of him for him to remain still—he had to do something. Pulling out his wand, he began waving it at Sirius' things and propelling them hard into a corner of the living room. After a minute he threw down his wand and began picking things up and throwing them with his hands, not caring if they broke. Shoes, bass, cloak, notes, books, papers, pictures…Remus ran into the bedroom and tiny bathroom, frantically grabbing things to add to the pile. Razor, comb, robes, jeans, sweaters, posters, and bags were added to the pile. Finally, Remus threw the bedspread from their bed and the dirty dishes into the enormous pile that now took up a significant part of the room. It was then that he stopped. Though he wanted to ignite the pile, vanish it, do _something_ to destroy everything in it, he was not a rash person. His burst of nervous energy had dissipated. With a sigh, Remus grabbed a small sack that Sirius had used to store dirty laundry, performed a simple Undetectable Extension charm on it, and directed Sirius' possessions into it. He then picked up the sack and hid it at the bottom of Sirius' now empty closet. Drained, he lay back on the bed.

When he had last seen Sirius two days ago, conditions hadn't been ideal. Remus had just returned from a few days of spying, and Sirius had been drunk again. Sirius was good at hiding it, but Remus could always tell by the way everything seemed to bounce off of him—bad news, bad moods, everything. Sirius had been in one of his rare cheerful moods. That night nothing had seemed to bother him. The casserole, like everything Sirius cooked, had looked disgusting but was tasty enough. Sirius, who had looked as though he hadn't shaved or changed his clothes since Remus had left, had giggled manically and chattered through the meal. Remus found these moods of Sirius' infectious, and he too had begun to relax and have a good time, especially after a couple glasses of wine.

When the meal had finished, Sirius had sighed contentedly. "Remus," he had said, in a rare, reflective moment, "do you ever miss being at school?"

"Oh, all the time." Remus had replied.

"Is that so?"

"Of course! In fact, I miss Hogwarts every time you cook dinner."

Sirius had kicked Remus lightly under the table. "You have to admit, though, being on our own does have certain…advantages."

"Like what?"

"Well, for one thing, James and Peter never used to leave us alone." Sirius had grinned mischievously, giving Remus a look that could have meant only one thing.

But at the mention of James, Remus' worries had come rushing back. "Sirius, there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about."

"Is that right?"

"Suppose we lose this."

"What do you mean?"

"Suppose he finds Lily and James. Suppose Dumbledore is killed. Suppose the Order disbands."

"Oh come off it, Remus. We're not going to…"

"You don't have to pretend, Sirius. You know as well as I do that the Order is weak. I'm not trying to be pessimistic—just realistic. If the worst should happen, we both need to be on the same page."

Sirius had stared at Remus a moment. "If the Order fell," he had said slowly, giving Remus an intense look, "I would keep fighting until they killed me." Looking back on this moment, Remus wondered if there hadn't been some subtle sign of what Sirius planned to do the next day in Sirius' words. But perhaps not—Sirius had always been a good actor.

Remus had sighed. "I thought you would say that."

"And you, Remus? You sound disappointed."

"I feel the same way. I just…hoped you would say something else."

Sirius had nodded. After a solemn moment, however, his grin had returned and his eyes had begun to twinkle. "Well, Remus," he said, "Suppose we all die tomorrow. I would hate to think that we hadn't at least…"

"I'm tired, Sirius," Remus had interrupted. And he had been—more tired that he had realized before. The full moon had been coming in less than a week, and he hadn't slept much in the past few days.

Sirius' face had darkened. "I am too, Remus. But we never see each other anymore…"

Remus hadn't liked where the conversation had seemed to be going. He had stood up, finding that he was somewhat drunk. Alcohol always seemed to have a greater effect on him when his transformation was approaching. Sirius had stood up as well and moved towards Remus. He'd had a significant head start on Remus, and had been more than just somewhat intoxicated. There had been a slightly imbalanced, dangerous look on his face that Remus hadn't liked. "Sirius," Remus had warned, placing his hand on Sirius' arm, "Sit down…"

But Sirius had flung his arm out of Remus' grasp. His long hair had fallen into his face, but he had hardly seemed to notice. The fury in his expression had made him look slightly deranged. "Don't touch me, Remus," he had barked. There had been something derisive and taunting in how he said Remus' name. "I'm sick of your bullshit."

"Sirius, stop…"

"Don't you 'Sirius' me. I have the right to say what I want. And I am sick and tired of you fucking with me, Remus. I'm sick of your condescending bullshit. I'm sick of having to suck up you to get you to have sex with me once and a while. But you know what? I'm glad you don't give a shit about this relationship. It just makes me feel great," Sirius had raged sarcastically, "Fuck you, Remus." Sirius had stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

Remus had sighed, waved his wand so that the dishes piled themselves in the sink, and gone to get ready for bed. Sirius had outbursts like this fairly frequently. Remus knew he never meant what he said. Relatively speaking, this incident had been minor—Remus had been too tired to get involved. When Sirius managed to incense Remus, however, things had sometimes gotten very nasty—once or twice, their conflicts had become physical.

When Sirius had stumbled in later that night, Remus had still been lying awake in bed. He had watched as Sirius stripped to his underwear and crawled into bed. Remus had turned over to face Sirius, whose bright eyes had stared at him intently in the darkness. As usual, no words had been exchanged, but Remus had known that Sirius was sorry. Remus had leaned in and kissed Sirius as an unspoken sign of forgiveness. Remus had known that some would say he forgave Sirius too easily—that they ought to have talked and that Remus ought to have tried to get Sirius to stop drinking and losing his temper, or else leave him. Remus had disagreed. Sirius' moods were only temporary—he had never truly meant anything he said. This had just been his way of blowing off tension.

Remus shook himself out of his reverie. The sack of Sirius' things that now lay in Sirius' closet burned into Remus' mind. Remus crawled into bed and tried to push the image out of his head. After a while, he fell into a deep, coma-like sleep between sheets that still smelled like Sirius.


	3. Dumbledore

Something wasn't right.

Remus ran the facts through his head over and over again. Sirius had been the Secret-Keeper, which meant that Dumbledore, James, Lily, and everyone else who was in the Order and privy to the situation had trusted him. Sirius had tricked everyone into thinking he was a friend, including Remus. And, in spite of his betrayal, Voldemort had been defeated.

Something wasn't right. And when something wasn't right, Remus had learned, it was best to go talk to Dumbledore.

And so Remus found himself in Hogwarts, knocking on the door to Dumbledore's office. "Enter," invited a voice from within. Remus complied.

The room was large, and it seemed, as usual, to be filled with light. Late afternoon sun streamed in from the windows, bouncing off the many magical tools that sat on various tables and shelves. In the center of the room sat Dumbledore's desk, complete with the headmaster himself. Dumbledore was dressed in dark red, velvety robes today—robes that almost seemed to match the phoenix that stood on a perch next to the desk. All in all, the room was far too cheerful to suit Remus' mood.

"Remus! Come in and sit down," said Dumbledore, looking up and clearing the desk of papers he had been poring over with a sweep of his wand, "What can I do for you today?" Dumbledore's usual, twinkling demeanor was only slightly disturbed by the resigned look he had in his eyes—Remus suspected Dumbledore knew what this meeting was about.

"Well," Remus began slowly, "It's about Lily and James. And about Sirius." Almost three full weeks had passed, and still Remus felt an enormous mix of emotions every time he said Sirius' name. He was sad, and frustrated, and angry. He missed Sirius, but at the same time Remus was embarrassed to bring him up—whenever he did, he felt like he was reminding people of an enormous mistake he had made.

Dumbledore's eyes were piercing. "You still cannot make head or tail of why he did what he did," the headmaster said simply.

"Correct," said Remus, "I just don't know what to think. It doesn't make any sense."

Dumbledore sighed. "I thought you might come to me about this. You are too smart a man and Sirius meant too much to you for you to simply accept something like this at face value. Sirius betrayed us all that night, and it would seem—based on what we knew of Sirius' ideals—that he betrayed himself as well."

Remus nodded, wondering where Dumbledore was going to go with this.

"I have been expecting you, and I have thought a great deal about how to say what I am about to say to you," said Dumbledore, "I'm afraid this is the best I can do. Sometimes," he sighed, "we fail to think critically about those we love. We think that they feel one way because that is the way we want them to feel, but often, with closer scrutiny, we find that they are not, in fact, who we think they are. Many fine witches and wizards—including myself, as a matter of fact—have been victim to this. In all likelihood," Dumbledore continued, "Sirius was simply doing what he thought was best for mankind. His priorities had simply become…confused."

Remus furrowed his brow and nodded. "If you don't mind me asking, Professor," he said, "when did you…"

"Make the same mistake?" finished Dumbledore. Remus nodded. "A long time ago. Years before you were born. I found myself won over by a beautiful face and some very fascinating ideas that, when put into practice, were much different than I expected. I almost made the mistake of not facing my error in judgment, in fact," he said, "But in the end, he who clouded my vision wound up in a jail cell, too."

Remus made a concerted effort not to let his mouth fall open. "Grindelwald?"

Dumbledore smiled. "As you can see, the man I made the mistake of trusting did much worse than the man you made the mistake of trusting."

Remus nodded dumbly. He had been given a lot to think about. "Thank you, Professor," he said.

"Any time, Remus," said Dumbledore, summoning the papers back to his desk with another wave of his wand. Remus stood up and began walking towards the door when he realized there had been something he had forgotten to ask. He turned back around. "Oh, and Professor?" he said.

Dumbledore looked up. "Yes?"

"There's no way Sirius could have…known what was going to happen, is there? I mean, he couldn't have led Voldemort to Lily and James knowing it would destroy him?"

Dumbledore looked sad. "No, Remus," he said, "I'm afraid no one could have predicted what happened that night."

Remus nodded again. "I didn't think so," he said, "It was just a thought."


End file.
